Series 8 Episode 1: The Mysterious Feet of Nora Batty

Bob: And so to 1985, and a series that I think is the end of a hugely significant era for Last of the Summer Wine. Things were never quite the same after this! But there are no signs of the upheaval to come just yet, and we start – as so often we do – with Compo, Clegg and Foggy on the moors.

Andrew: I assumed that there must have been a brand of toothpaste whose name sounded somewhat like euthanasia. Am I even close?

Bob: Congratulations! You win your own weight in pink goo. Yes indeed, Euthymol toothpaste. It looks like it’s still available, but I’m guessing it’s not widely used amongst actual young people. There was powder, too! When I was a young, my Gran cleaned her teeth with Euthymol powder, essentially a small white tub of fine, pink sand that you dipped your wet toothbrush into. It tasted like a combination of bleach and Liquorice Allsorts, and had a slightly anaesthetic effect on the tongue. For twenty minutes after getting up every morning, I was unable to pronounce the letter ‘t’.

Andrew: Well I hope you brushed your teeth after breakfast, because that would seriously limit your options.

Bob: I just asked my Gran for ea and oas. On a ray.

Andrew: I think it’s also worth noting that this the second episode in a row to feature Clegg spinning a bit of whimsy involving Hitler. Was Roy Clarke watching repeats of The World at War when he was writing this run?

Bob: Even a bonus dose of Hitler Whimsy can’t hold up the pace of this episode, though. It comes out of the blocks like Steve Ovett, and we establish in the first few minutes that our heroes are going to spend the ensuing thirty minutes measuring the size of Nora Batty’s feet. Blimey, is this a record for us getting to the crux of an episode?

Andrew: I really like how genuinely protective Compo is of Nora here. ‘She’s not got big feet!’ he cries, taking genuine offence. To me, this is a lovely little acknowledgement that Compo isn’t just a little sex pest, and that he really does have deep-rooted feelings for her, beneath all of his lust and bluster.

Bob: And so poor Wally is dragged into the pub to have his testimony extracted. So to speak. Is it me, or is the studio audience unusually lively in this episode? They’re absolutely hysterical! It’s like watching Happy Days. I expected Wally to get a round of applause when he first appeared.

Andrew: Well, Wally and The Fonz both ride motorcycles… actually, I think the comparison ends there. If any character deserves a round of applause every time they enter the scene, however, it’s Wally.

Bob: Good to see they’re drinking Mild! A good West Yorkshire pint, that.

I’m actually baffled to learn from Alan JW Bell’s book that Brian Wilde had to be talked into this series, feeling that the scripts weren’t all they could have been. Because the dialogue in this episode is absolutely sparkling, with Roy Clarke taking his love of the non-sequitur to almost surreal levels. According to Clegg, Wally is ‘dark and Slavonic… I always imagine Dostoevsky as being rather like him’.

And ‘hands up everybody who cannot describe an ilk’! And the entire pub does! This is weird and utterly inspired.

Andrew: I think I’d describe this scene as Joe Gladwin’s finest moment, though I seem to say that about every scene he appears in these days. He’s on fine form for this episode, however, and Clarke’s sparkling script really does bring out some fine comic acting.

Bob: Yes, this is a truly magnificent episode for our hero! If The Loxley Lozenge was a charming showcase for Gordon Wharmby, then this is a love letter to Joe Gladwin and his extraordinary comic timing and exquisite hangdog misery. ‘I’m being held in this boozer against me will,’ he deadpans. ‘Which I must say is a big improvement in me normal standard of living’.

Mind you, I raised an eyebrow at Wally’s concerns about being ‘sterile’! Nora and Wally don’t appear to have any kids, do they? And nor did Sid or Ivy, as far as we ever learn. I guess having lively thirty or fortysomething offspring forever buzzing around these two lifeless family units would have ruined the ethos of Summer Wine; that focus on older people eking away their time with literally nothing to do. Wally and Nora wouldn’t be anywhere near as funny if they had a jolly, happily married son or daughter to fuss over.

Andrew: I can only think of one Summer Wine couple from the entire run with a child who plays a major role in the series – later on we’ll meet Wesley’s wife Edie, and their daughter Glenda. Sid and Ivy, Wally and Nora, Howard and Pearl, and Barry and Glenda are all childless. Aside from Compo, none of our leads are referred to as having sired off-screen offspring either, are they? And even that was a bit of a retcon for the character. I’d be genuinely interested to know where this comes from. Is it, as you say, a plot convenience, or does Roy Clarke have some sort of personal connection with this trope?

We can’t gloss over the fact that Wally appears to be wary of accepting strange pints after having his drink ‘nobbled’ at the pigeon club. His reference to this goes absolutely nowhere, but that’s certainly a bit of backstory I’d love to hear more about. Who on earth slipped Wally Batty a roofy?!

Bob: That should have been an episode title in its own right. And whoah, what a superb close-up of Joe Gladwin! For a man with a reputation for showing off Summer Wine’s glorious scenery, Alan JW Bell also knows the value of a good, comedy close-up. The audience roar as Wally is clearly traumatised, trying to work out the part of Nora’s body that our heroes wish to examine at close quarters. There’s a battleground of emotions being played out across those craggy features. And then:

If she were attacked right in front of me eyes, I’d have to stand there helpless. She could have the bloke mauled to death before I could drag her off.

Magnificent!

Andrew: Not to be insensitive, but have you noticed Gladwin’s nose in this episode? We’ve spoken at length about his worn features, but his conk looks positively necrotic here – it’s a completely different colour to the rest of his face! I hope it wasn’t painful.

I’ve no worthwhile point to make about this other than that you would never ever see an actor go before a television camera like that these days. I think there’s a much thicker level of artificiality when it comes to the presentation of characters in modern television, and it permeates costume, make-up, and even casting itself. Show me one unconventional-looking sitcom lead today and I’ll eat my hat.

Bob: Into the café, and mark this down as a historic moment… without a doubt, it’s the first exclamation of ‘What the blood and stomach pills?!!!’ from Ivy! Do ladies of a certain age still do this kind of ‘nearly’ swearing? Just as Ivy is clearly restraining herself from saying ‘What the bloody hell’, I remember elderly relatives in my distant youth saying things like ‘Oh, my godfathers…’ to narrowly avoid taking the name of Our Lord in vain.

Andrew: Despite generally having a mouth like a Tourette’s-stricken docker, this sort of avoidance is certainly something that has been passed down to me from previous generations. Emma shoots me some various curious glances if I let slip with a ‘Blummin’ Heck’.

Can I admit to something rather embarrassing here? In my notes for this episode I wrote ‘First Blood and Stomach Pills’ and while writing this up, I spent ten minutes scouring the episode for a reference to Rambo that I assumed I’d forgotten.

Bob: Ha! Ha! Sylvester Stallone, of course, played Foggy in the big-budget Hollywood Summer Wine remake. You know, the one that – thank God – never actually happened.

Right… 1985 Price Watch: 75p for Pasty and Chips, 20p for a Chip Butty. On the café blackboard. I like Compo’s cheeky kiss on Foggy’s fizzog as well, it’s a really nice affectionate touch. Despite their constant sniping, let’s not forget that Foggy and Compo have been friends for – what? At least 55 years at this point? A passing peck seems fair enough to me. ‘Italians do it all the time’, grumbles Wally. ‘Men kissing each other at the railway station. You see some terrible things in the war’.

I’d give Joe Gladwin an affectionate kiss, though. He deserves it for a performance like this.

Andrew: 1985 Shop Watch: I’ve set myself the mission of keeping track of the shop that is visible at the end of Compo and Nora’s street in order to chart its evolution through the years. As of 1985, the unit is occupied by G.W. Castle Ltd. Now you know.

Bob: Good work. It’s about time we got ourselves a hobby. Hey, this is a lovely scene of Foggy attempting to draw out Wally’s memories of Nora’s feet by regressing him to the cold winter nights of the early days of his marriage. It’s incredibly sweet, with Ronnie Hazlehurst providing a charming, gentle soundtrack. And Foggy is an old romantic at heart, isn’t he? He paints a lovely picture here.

Andrew: There’s some champion gurning from Bill Owen, as Foggy attempts to jog Wally’s memory by conjuring up images of Nora in her nightie.

Now is it just me, or has the series’ relationship with filmed location inserts changed recently? The show has always been made up of pre-filmed inserts, placed between scenes shot in front of a studio audience, but here the balance seems to have changed slightly, with the studio scenes acting in support of the film. Am I imagining this shift? We don’t have time to go back and watch all of the episodes again!

Bob: I think there’s definitely a lot more location work than there used to be, especially in the town itself. We’ve moved in from the moors a bit, haven’t we?

Mind you, these final studio scenes, with Wally in the house casting furtive glances at Nora’s feet from all kinds of awkward angles, are an absolute delight… just brilliant physical comedy. ‘It’s like having a piece of furniture coming alive’, barks Nora, and I’m absolutely sold on the prospect of a man of Wally’s generation having absolutely no idea about the size of his wife’s feet. I wonder if my Dad knows what my Mum’s shoe size is? I bet he doesn’t.

Andrew: A big laugh from me as Nora questions, ‘Have you been readin’ funny books?!’ Just the idea of Wally attempting to procure such things…

I also love Nora’s motherly instructing of Wally to ‘Wash your hands for tea’, as though he were a child. Saying that, my own pre-meal hand washing has gone downhill since moving out of my parents house, so maybe she’s quite right to remind him.

Bob: You’ve baked cakes for me, too. I feel a a bit queasy now. Hang on a second here, has Foggy just SHOPLIFTED? He seems to have smuggled a footsizer out of a respectable shoe shop, clutching it beneath the folds of his jacket! What’s going on? The scales have fallen from my eyes! The man is a habitual recidivist, and a menace to society. What? WHAT???! Have I got this right?

Andrew: That certainly seems to be the case ,and absolutely nothing is made of the fact! If this was Series One or Two, the entire episode would have revolved around the planning and execution of this heist!

The trio take their illicit footsizer, attach it to a comically long pole, and attempt to measure up Nora from a safe distance, as she climbs a ladder to clean the windows. I love the ridiculousness of the footsizer creeping into frame behind Nora’s heel and the scene is improved immeasurably by what I think is Ronnie Hazlehurst making a subtle musical reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey. Brilliant.

Bob: Oh, brilliant spot! I never got that! A great episode, I think, and the show is on fine form at the moment. And I’d be amazed if this wasn’t one of Joe Gladwin’s favourite episodes… it’s virtually built around him, and gives him countless opportunities to show off his impeccable comic timing. I really think he’s one of Summer Wine’s great unsung heroes – Wally is a truly brilliant and loveable comic character, and it’s episodes like this that make me regret that Wally and Nora never had their own George and Mildred-style spin off.

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July 31, 2015 9:13 amPosted 3 years ago

Chris Orton

I’ve often wondered about the lack of children in the series. The series shouldn’t be about children of course, but there is barely any mention of them really. Does Clarke writes very well for women, so you would think that that the subject of children would feed through into his work somewhere along the line, but it isn’t touched upon much in his other shows like Open All Hours or Keeping Up Appearances. You wonder if Roy Clarke has children himself?

I think that Clegg would probably have made a good father, although he’d probably be just the same as his own.

Siblings are also quite rare in the series. Seymour and Nora are the only ones that I can think of as having a brother or sister.

It really wouldn’t be the same if any of the main characters had children. Especially in those early years, when the show is SO much about idling away the autumnal days, and desperately struggling to fill them.

My seventysomething parents never stop racing about, and far too much of it is stuff to do with me.

Hang on, what am I talking about? Compo had a son! Hitherto unknown when he appeared, but in the early years things like that probably hadn’t even been thought about. Could have made some quite interesting stories if we had met Clegg’s ultra-successful brother or a ‘mishap’ child of Foggy’s!

Although based on First of the Summer Wine there’s no sign of a Miss Clegg, so I’d be inclined to assume that Clegg’s ‘brother-in-law’ is his wife’s brother, rather than a putative sister’s husband. That said, I’ve never been 100% clear on the canonicity of FOTSW; presumably it’s all official given the people involved, but then as you gentlemen have observed several times, even LOTSW isn’t flawless when it comes to internal consistency (but we love it all the same!)

Thanks for the welcome, Mr Fischer! This really is a fun project to read through, not least because LOTSW does seem somewhat- criminally- overlooked these days; I don’t know if any other sites (aside from the Summer Wine forums I recently found) actually look at the series in any kind of detail, and there’s a lot of great insights brought up in the discussion, so congratulations! This site did inspire in me a sudden urge to create a comprehensive F/LOTSW database, but (thankfully?) the madness passed with the sobering realisation that I probably have at most 50 or 60 years of life remaining..! (Also, ‘Mr’ was right, if we’re being polite!)

in his excellent reeviw, this is series (season) 3, and is available at Amazon UK in a box set of series 3 4. Of course, you’ll need an all region code dvd player with a built in PAL to NTSC converter to play it. What fan of British comedy with one or two hundred dollars to spare doesn’t already have one? Several companies sell players through Amazon, but some customers have had problems that were not resolved by the seller or the manufacturer. Read the reeviws. It’s not like a Google search for code free dvd player is difficult, now is it? Look for the Better Business Bureau logo and a guarantee. Some companies sell many brands but recommend only a few (like 220-electronics). Believe this advice. I’m still happy with the JVC I bought from them 5 years ago. Some players play all regions but don’t convert PAL to NTSC. You want one that does both. But back to the dvd itself. You’ll meet Foggy in the first episode. He’s an arrogant, pompous jerk who sometimes stops bragging about doing things he’s never done, or complaining about everyone, long enough to come up with some insane idea for an activity. He loves to take charge of everything, always in the most incompetent manner possible. Clegg recognizes him at once as a genuine, 14-carat, gilt-edged barmpot (crazy, stupid, foolish). Foggy gets his comeuppance twice in the first episode. Sweet. Despite already having it on a PAL dvd, it’s nice to have a disc that I can take to a friend’s place without unplugging and moving my dvd player. If you enjoy laughing, or think you might if you ever found something funny enough to laugh at, order Last of the Summer Wine: Vintage 1976 right now! But read Howie’s excellent reeviw first. Anyone enough of a hacker to tell me how to give it ten stars out of five?

This is a cracking episode to start a series, and as you say, is Joe Gladwins finest performance so far.

The lack of children is interesting, as you say only Wesley and Edie have children. It must have been an intentional choice, but I’d be interested to find out the reason too.

It’s a good point to note just how popular LotSW was in this period. This episode had 18.80 million viewers, and was the 5th most watched programme of the year (with Open all Hours providing Roy Clarke a good double in 4th)

I presume these lists only allow 1 episode from each series into the table so I don’t know how the rest of the series rated, but this was LotSWs 2nd of 4 appearances in the top ten of the year (the lists start in 1981). The others were

Certainly it seems the biggest audience post 81, which is when BARB started doing ratings. I’m pretty sure it’s the same system as they use now where only one episodes from each show can appear (otherwise each list would be filled with Coronation street and Eastenders episodes). So it’s possible the other episodes in the series also had high figures too.

There’s no figures available online for pre-1981. Before then ratings were compiled for the BBC by the BBC themselves while ITV used a company called JICTAR (joint industry committee for tv audience research). This is why there’s often debates about, for example exactly how many watched the legendary Morecambe and Wise Xmas show of 77. It was the BBCs own figures that said 28.5m watched. However ITV claimed that Mike Yarwoods show was the highest rated according to JICTAR.

I just realised that due to work, I have access to ukpressonline for the next month or so, so I’ve had a quick look, and here’s the top 20 from the Daily Express from Mon 5th Nov 1979 showing that the previous week “Here we go Into the wild Blue Yonder” had 19.55 million according to JICTAR. It mentions the strike (which ended that week). I’ll have a look see if I can find lists for other weeks.

Cheers Jakob, those are fascinating. 17 million viewers for Blankety Blank!!! And rightly so.

Whille you’ve got access, can I ask a cheeky favour? Can you check and see if the Daily Mirror, just ahead of the broadcast of Getting Sam Home, tried to whip up some controversy about the language in it – specifically Sid’s line ‘Listen, fart face…’?

I definitely remember this, and the Mirror was the only tabloid we bought. My guess would be the Boxing Day edtion, but I suppose it might also have run before a day or two Christmas. I’d love to see it again, if it’s easy to check? Cheers!

Unfortunately, the Daily Mirror archives you can access only go up to 1980 🙁 there’s no mention I can find in the express though. I’m going to try and go through and find all the references to LotSW I can though. I’ve already found one photo I don’t recognise seeing before, of Bill Owen, Peter Sallis and Michael Aldridge dressed as the three kings, to publicise one of the Xmas specials.

I’ve just had a look, and you can actually view all the pages of the Daily Mirror, after 1980, but only in very low resolution. You can see pictures and read headlines but little else. But having a look, the only article i can see about LotSW, was in the Xmas Eve issue here. It might mention it in there, but i don’t know how to get hold of a better copy (can you still go into libraries and look at old newspapers?)

Hmmm… curious! I’m pretty sure that wasn’t it, it was a news feature, and it was specifically about the bad language in Getting Sam Home. It must have been in a different newspaper then, although I’m baffled as to which one, as I only remember us EVER having the Mirror!

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August 2, 2015 11:41 amPosted 3 years ago

Jakob1978

Ah, I think ive found it. It was on the 17th December, I hadnt looked far enough back. Again you can’t read the article but the headline is “Four letter ban on Compo & Co”, so I can only assume that’s the one you’re remembering 🙂

Having done further research, it appears that series 5 certainly benefitted from the strike and that the episode “Earnshaw Strikes Again” had the most viewers with a massive 22.20 million viewers (I can’t find the chart that would show what Full Steam Ahead got though).

Curiously enough I had recently been pondering the lack of children in the series. Cyril and Foggy were set up clearly as bachelors for most of their lives for differing reasons which are never stated and in a later episode Clegg states “We never had children, it was only later I found out why”, which implies to me Edie or him were sterile.
Compo, the retcon isn’t too unbelievable as it is mentioned in the Blamire episodes he was a bit of a Jack the lad.

Some further thoughts. You’re slightly mistaken in one part, Foggy isn’t hiding the foot sizer beneath his jacket, he walks out of the shop openly carrying it wrapped in newspaper. He unwraps it showing Clegg and Compo, but hiding it from the viewer so they get a big laugh out of the reveal of it in the next shot. I don’t think Foggy can be accused of stealing in this case 🙂

It’s also the Summer Wine debut of a minor character played by James Duggan, who will keep cropping up as the rather stern landlord of the White Horse Pub for the next few years, repeatedly throwing the trio out.

Jakob… for some reason I can’t reply to your actual post (I think we might have reached the limit on that) but that Daily Mirror article you’ve found from 17/12/83 is DEFINITELY the one – thanks so much! Is there no way of seeing post-1980 Mirror clippings, then? I would have happily paid the £7.50 to see the actual text, but it looks like I can’t!

It looks like only accounts for libraries and schools/universities can access post 1980 daily mirrors sadly 🙁 now you know the date though, it gives a better chance of finding it. There must be a way to look at an old copy somehow. I’ll keep trying 🙂

As far as children go, who’s the younger woman who seems to come out of Nora & Harold’s front door with a handful of washing in the Pilot? (Wally was referred to as Harold by Compo in this episode). She greets Compo by calling him “Mr Simmonite”. Don’t know why, I always thought she was a daughter to Nora & Wally (Harold). I do remember Pearl telling a group of ladies her & Howard had no kids, but forget the episode. Ivy tells, Connie Simmonite, Compo’s Niece-In-Law when Chip collects his Uncle Bill, Clegg & Blamire to take them to Gupperdyke Hall, the stately home in series 1 that “we have non ya know” whilst billing & cooing over Connie & Chip’s youngest. And a note about Gordon’s mum, Dolly, mentioned earlier, sister-in-law to Compo not sister.

When Clegg refers to Wally’s Slavonic looks, it makes me think of him doing “Who Do You Think You Are?”…

WALLY: If there’s one thing I am, it’s broad-minded.

WALLY: I’m in no condition to go punching people about.
CLEGG: Wally, you’re in no condition to scream for help!
(I love it when those sorts of comebacks are just deadpanned by Wally too, as though it’s not a light-hearted josh, just a statement of fact.)
Indeed Wally is pretty deadpan most of the time, except when he gets rhapsodic over pigeons.

NORA: Look at me when I’m shouting at you!

And a nothingness of an episode (apart from the Magic of Wally) is resolved when Foggy produces a typical solution – the extra-tall ladder! Will it go over? Ooh, I wonder…